Author: Ernest Cline
Series: N/A
Published: 5 April 2012 by Arrow
Length: 384 pages
Warnings: violence,
sex references, 13+
Source: Library
Other info: Ernest
has also written a set of poems about his life. Ernest is also running a
similar contest onlne, for adults in the USA, but not Florida and Columbia, and
the prize is a car.
Summary : It’s
the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. Like most of humanity, Wade
Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into
the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be,
a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand
planets. And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover
the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For
somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday
has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and
remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.
Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the
finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics
as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.And then Wade stumbles upon the
first puzzle.Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors
join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit
very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to
survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. A world at stake. A quest for the ultimate
prize. Are you ready?
Review: Wade is a Gunter. One of many who, since the
death of Virtual Reality OASIS's CEO and founder Halliday, has been hunting for
Easter eggs scattered all over the virtual galaxy. Finding them, and keys and
gates before any other Gunter means that they will gain inheritance of OASIS.
Many a dedicated Gunter wants this. But as well as playing against OASIS,
they're playing against IOI, a company that will do anything to win-even kill.
From the start, I was pulled in. It's a premise that's
different from anything I've read before, except maybe Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory, and that didn't take part on a computer generated universe.
The 2040s world is built up quickly, explaining what went
wrong in the 10s, and how Earth went downhill from there. The concept behind
the Hunt and the OASIS is also quickly explained, and is easy to pick up.
You get a large cast of characters. Wade is our protagonist,
appearing in OASIS as Parzival. In addition to him is Art3mis, well known
Gunter with a highly successful blog, best friend Aech(despite never meeting in
real life)and Japanese duo Daito and Shoto. None of them are who you think
they'd be when you meet them properly, but Aech, Art3mis and Wade are built up
really well, and I got really attached to all five gunters, even though for the
majority of the novel, we know four of them as online avatars.
Wade is clever, resourceful, thinks outside the box and is
very likable. Once IOI make their intentions clear, he does quite well at
staying one step ahead of them, and is obviously very dedicated to the hunt.
He's also gone through major character development by the end, with a really
cute ending.
Although most of Ready Player One is set in OASIS, the cuts
to the real world are great. They give a sense of reality, and remind you that
there's a person playing this game. What I don't understand is if they're in
the middle of an energy crisis, why are they, as in the whole world, stuck on a
computer?
Not that I blame them. In Oasis, anything could happen. Most
of what we see is connected to 80s geek culture. Dungeons and Dragons and other
video games are the most prevalent, but for anyone who grew up in the 80s or
who has/had an obsession with that time, this is amazing. And if you didn't,
it's still amazing. Not knowing the D&D games inside out isn't a problem
for the reader, because Wade does. There's so many references to so much stuff,
it's unbelievable. And while it's less than 400 pages, there's so much
happening (both storywise and to do with the fact the print and spacing is
small) that it seems so much longer. In a good way.
And the whole scale of it all...as I said, IOI will kill for
the win, a fact that's made clear once Wade gets a lead. The stakes are so
high, the writing so gripping, the characters so engaging, the plot so
exciting, that it's impossible to tear yourself away.
Overall: Strength 5 tea to a truly epic story that
everyone will find something to love in.
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Nina xxx